Shine
by dutchtulips
Summary: an HG quickfic, post-OOTP. Harry and Ginny share a much needed and comforting moment together one evening in the common room.


**SD - **J. Ro owns all. I'm not making anything off of this... I'm not that lucky. ;-)

**AN - **It's been a long time - over a year - since I last wrote a fanfic, and I guess I picked the most opportune time to break the silence, huh, starting again in a fandom I've never done before? LOL. Well, anyhoo, that doesn't hinder the fact that I adore Harry/Ginny, and I hope everyone enjoys my first Emerald Flame fic. ;-) This takes place during Harry's sixth year.

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**Shine**

-dutchtulips-

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"_When you're down and out,_

_When you're on the street,_

_When evening falls so hard,_

_I will comfort you..._

_Like a bridge over troubled water,_

_I will ease your mind."_

--Simon and Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

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He actually looked peaceful.

It was the first thing she noticed about him, as she came quietly down the staircase from her dormitory. After Hermione had come into her room, to tell her that she and Ron had prefect duties that evening and _"Harry's downstairs in the common room reading, if you want to keep him company, since he'll be alone for a few hours", _she wasn't sure at first if it would be a good idea to go down. Harry had become somewhat difficult to talk to these days, and if it were just him and her, alone, she knew it would be harder.

But a feeling kept nagging at Ginny Weasley, something that she couldn't quite identify. From the very moment Hermione had left the dormitory and gone downstairs to leave, the essay spread out across her bed that Ginny was working on for History of Magic seemed to dissolve away, leaving just Ginny, sitting cross-legged on the bed with a pensive look crossing her features.

_What is wrong with me? _She wondered to herself as she realized what she was thinking about, Hermione's words that were still ringing in her head.

"_Harry's downstairs in the common room.... he'll be alone for a few hours..."_

"You're over him, Weasley," Ginny mumbled to herself, trying to refocus on her essay. "Ron and Hermione have been out on prefect duty plenty of nights before, leaving Harry by himself. I never had the urge to go keep him company before."

She brushed a stray lock of her red hair behind her ear, trying to push away the thoughts. _Okay, _she thought, pulling her History of Magic book towards her, _Perhaps one of the most famous witches in fourteen dynasty was Isabel the Intelligent, who discovered that the use of dittany in certain antidotes aided in, not only healing the body from the poison, but preventing -_

" - Other afflictions that the body could develop in the future," she finished, reading the last part aloud. Ginny's eyes drifted off the page. _Like Harry, _she thought. _How he's so sad since Sirius died, how he needs someone to hold him and tell him everything's going to work out...._

She slammed the book shut. "Stop it!" Ginny said to herself. "You don't feel that way for him anymore!"

Yeah, sure. Ginny had told herself that. She thought she believed it, too. But the young red-haired girl had found herself walking down the staircase, stepping into the common room, her eyes locked onto the boy laying on the sofa in front of the fireplace. She still felt something for him, and she knew it. It was like being drawn into a vacuum, being pulled by a force with which she had no choice but to comply. Maybe that was why she'd already broken up with Dean Thomas after just a few months. Because even then, Ginny knew. She _knew._

It was all that mattered now.

Ginny stepped closer to the sofa, approaching Harry tentatively. As she got a good look at his face, she saw that he was sleeping. The book he'd been reading, _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_, was draped over his chest and, as he lay curled up in the warmth of the fire, a tranquil expression played across his features.

The sight pulled at Ginny's heart as she noticed the look on his face. She'd never seen Harry look so calm in several months as he did now. At the same time it made her wonder if this was the first peaceful sleep he'd had for a long time.

Without thinking, Ginny inched closer to Harry, carefully sitting down on the side of the sofa next to him. An urge seized her, to reach over and brush his hair back, to rest a hand on his forehead, to _touch him...._

But the most her courage would allow her to do was grab the book on his chest and slip it carefully out of his hands. Ginny closed the thick volume, and turned slightly to place it on the end table. However, when she turned back around to look at Harry, she was surprised to see that he was staring back at her.

The jet-haired young man blinked his bright green eyes several times, bringing his surroundings into focus, or really, just the girl sitting in front of him. "Ginny?"

"Hi," she said quietly, and attempted to smile, though she wondered if a smile was what Harry saw. "I - I didn't know you were awake."

Harry reached up to adjust his glasses, which were slightly askew, and replied gently,_ "_Well, I wasn't, until... just now."

Ginny was silent for a moment, as she looked at Harry, who was still laying down, looking back up at her. Suddenly she felt powerful, as if she had the courage to do anything. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, sure, why wouldn't I be?" He said shortly, that familiar closed-off behavior of Harry's beginning to seep back into him. As he started to pull himself up into a sitting position, Ginny let out a sigh.

_Don't shut me out, Harry. _

"Hey, you don't have to do that," the redhead replied softly, though she said it with conviction. Ginny met eyes with Harry again. "You don't have to pretend."

Harry stopped and propped himself up on his elbows, staring back. "Just leave me alone, okay? I know you're just trying to make me feel better, but -"

Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. "And that's a bad thing? What's wrong with trying to make somebody feel better when Merlin knows they could use some cheering up?" Her voice remained in the same gentle, yet firm, tone. "That's what Ron and Hermione have been trying to do. That's what everybody has been trying to do."

He shook his head. "Well, maybe they just don't understand. Maybe none of you understand what it's like to lose so many people close to you in the way that I did -"

_Oh, don't try that one on me, Harry._

She cut him off, softly. "Have you never figured out why we don't?" As Harry started to sit up again, Ginny instinctively reached over and seized his arm to stop him. His skin felt so warm from the heat of the fire and from whatever heady emotions were racing through him that Ginny momentarily lost her train of thought. All she had to do was put her other arm around him....

"You never _help_ us understand, Harry. And we... we want to.... so much..."

And suddenly something softened in Harry's piercing gaze as he felt Ginny's touch, and the ardency that had filled her gentle brown eyes. Acting purely on instinct himself, Harry allowed some of his defiance to melt. She hadn't deserved any of these short-tempered answers he'd been giving; Ginny wasn't trying to probe his mind or get him to talk about things that would only satisfy any curiosities she might have had. She was talking to him like _Harry, _her friend,and not like Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

"You do?" Harry asked her softly, knowing the real meaning behind the "we" she had used.

"Yes," she replied, her voice so low now that the words were a whisper. "I always have, you know."

A moment of silence fell between them, as Harry momentarily broke eye contact with Ginny, to look at her hand, which was still resting on his arm. Intuitively he lifted his own hand, and slowly reached up to lay it onto Ginny's. Responding to his touch, she moved her hand slightly, and interlaced their fingers. At first Ginny was worried about what he might do, but when Harry gave her hand a squeeze in return, a warm and reassuring glow spread through her.

"You're right," Harry said and, meeting eyes with her again, somehow managed a small smile for her. "I do know. I know now, anyway."

Ginny smiled back, unable to control it from breaking into a grin. "Really?"

"Yeah," he replied, his green eyes glowing, "You helped me understand, too."

And then Ginny's courage finally allowed her to reach over, with her other hand, to touch Harry's forehead, smoothing back the stray wisps of his untidy black hair away from his face. It made her feel as if Harry was lying down in the hospital wing, and she were a Healer, soothing him and nursing him back to health. And then it occurred to her that perhaps that's what she was, the person that Harry could lean on when he felt strength draining out of him, the girl that would be there to make him feel better, or to just be near him when he needed her.

And the smile that Harry would give her when she gave him comforting words or just sat in silence, holding his hand, was enough to cause him to shine, if only for a few moments, if only while he was with her.

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**el fin**

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End file.
